Casino Day 3 main - The Connecticut experience

In less than two decades, casinos owned by two American Indian tribes in Connecticut have grown into massive entertainment facilities beyond bingo halls, slot machines and table games.

Erica Jacobson

They sprang up in a verdant corner of Connecticut better known for its submarine base and shipyard, pharmaceutical industry and the straggling remains of a once vibrant mill complex.

In less than two decades, casinos owned by two American Indian tribes in Connecticut have grown into massive entertainment facilities beyond bingo halls, slot machines and table games.

Foxwoods is now the world's largest casino on a reservation that also includes an expansive American Indian museum.

Mohegan Sun has an arena large enough to host major concerts and WBNA games played by its home team, the Connecticut Sun.

Together, they employ 20,200 people -- more than the population of most surrounding towns -- and annually bring 24.7 million visitors to the region, which is the equivalent of every single resident of Texas coming to Connecticut, and then some.

Those are the easy numbers for Connecticut's casino industry. What can be harder to comprehend, and even calculate, is the massive amount of money pumping through the region since the casinos opened. The scope of the situation has stumped even those working with the most affected industries.

"The size of these casinos outstrips even the largest public projects out there," said John Farnham, director of administrative affairs for the Connecticut Construction Industries Association in Wethersfield.

"We haven't looked specifically at the impact coming from the gaming industry, but it's large, let's put it that way."

Following the money

Jeff Blodgett has analyzed several aspects of how money flows in the state's casino economy. The vice president of research at the Connecticut Economic Research Center, Blodgett determined the casinos spent about $696 million in the state in 2006, had a combined payroll of $838 million in the same year and had the largest effect on creating jobs in the education, health care and social service sectors.

And both casinos, facing growing competition from Rhode Island and, perhaps soon, Massachusetts, are in the midst of expansions with a total price tag of about $1.5 billion.

"Increasing competition in neighboring states, I think, made both casinos a little more aware and conscious of the market," Blodgett said of the impetus of his study. "This is the first one that looks at the combined effects."

Studies like Blodgett's have been scarce in the state. An economic center at the University of Connecticut studied Foxwoods in 2000. The state's Division of Special Revenue is just starting a casino impact study that it hopes to release in 2009, 12 years after its last. Mike Van Leesten, Foxwoods deputy executive director of public affairs, said the introduction of a new industry has taken some time to get into people's minds as something not part of the old fabric of the region.

"It just takes time for the state to digest," he said. "I'd characterize it as being extremely significant."

A lot at stake

Van Leesten said he's also waited to see someone address the issue of what would happen if Connecticut's casinos disappeared.

"Nobody really talks about that," he said. "You pull that out of the equation and suddenly you've got a mess here in the state, in my judgment."

Such a scenario would mean about $430 million less in Connecticut's general fund each year. Under the terms of compacts with each casino, 25 percent of the hold -- the amount a casino "wins" and doesn't pay out of a slot machine -- goes to state coffers each year.

"Certainly our deal with the two tribal nations is a very lucrative deal and is the best deal out there," said Paul Young, the division's executive director.

Other states have legislated larger shares from their commercial casino industry, he said, but the compact with Connecticut's two tribes, each a sovereign nation, clearly spell out the obligations for all involved.

"There isn't a lot else that can be done in Connecticut," Young said, "other than letting the two decide that they want to expand on their own reservations."

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